Hans Haacke
The Constituency (1977)

Two polls, conducted respectively in 1972 and 1973, at the New
York
John Weber
Gallery, a commercial gallery for contemporary art, showed that 70 per
cent of 858
(first poll) and 74 per cent of 1,324 (second poll) gallery visitors
who
responded to a
questionnaire during a two-and-a-half-week period each, declared that
they had a 'professional interest in art'.(1)

The visitors of commercial galleries of contemporary
art in New York
seem to be an
extremely select audience recruiting itself from the ranks of the
college-educated middle
and upper middle classes. The professionally uncommitted public of the
gallery can
hardly be suspected of representing 'the proletariat' or the mythical
'man in the street'.

Those who have a professional interest in art
(artists, students,
critics, the
directors, curators and their assistants in museums and comparable
institutions,
gallery owners and their assistants, advertising and public relations
executives,
government and party bureaucrats in charge of the arts, art advisors of
foundations,
corporations and of collectors, etc.) influence, although not with an
equal vote for
everyone, and frequently only in a nominal capacity, which products and
activities
are to be considered 'art' and how much attention should be paid to
each
artist and the
often competing art 'movements'. Many members of this diverse group are
not
independent agents but act rather on behalf of employers and clients
whose opinions
they might have internalized or cannot afford disregarding.

By no means is the art quality of a product inherent
in its substance.
The art
certificate is conferred upon it by the culturally powerful social set
in which it is to be
considered art, and it is only valid there and then. The attribution of
value, particularly
if this value is not supported by the needs for physical survival and
comfort, is
determined ideologically. Unless one invokes God or the quasi-divine
inspiration of a
disembodied party, the setting of norms and their subtle or not so
subtle enforcement,
throughout history, is performed by particular individuals or groups of
people and has
no claim to universal acceptance. Their beliefs, emotional needs, goals
and interests,
no matter if the particular cultural power elite is aware of and
acknowledges it, decide
on the ever shifting art criteria.

Usually there is no quarrel about the existence of
ideological
determination if it
emanates from a political or religious authority. The fact that
man-made
value systems
and beliefs reflecting particular interests are also at work in liberal
surroundings is not
quite as readily admitted by the liberal culture mongers. Ideology, of
course, is most
effective when it is not experienced as such.

Still, in the liberal environment of the John Weber
Gallery, the
question 'Do you
think the preferences of those who financially back the art world
influence the kind of
works artists produce?' received a remarkable answer 30 per cent of the
1,324
respondents of the aforementioned poll answered 'Yes, a lot.' Another
37
per cent
answered 'Somewhat'. The preformulated answer 'Not at all' was chosen
by
only 9 per
cent. To fully appreciate the gallery visitors' feeling of dependence,
potential conflict
and, possibly, cynicism and alienation, it is worth noting that 43 per
cent thought their
standard of living would be affected if no more art of living artists
were bought.

Apparently, a sizeable portion of the visitors of the
gallery (remember,
74 per cent
of them declared a professional interest in art) believed at the time
that the economic
power of private and institutional collectors, foundations, publishers,
corporate and
private contributors to art institutions and governmental funding
agencies does,
indeed, play a decisive role in the production and distribution of
contemporary art.

The validation of certain products as contemporary
high art, which, of
course,
guides future production while feeding on the consensus of the past,
obviously is not
independent of the art industry's(2) economic base. A cursory look at
the
art world in
liberal societies might therefore lead to the conclusion that it is,
in fact, as stringently
controlled as the cultural life in societies where street cleaning
equipment is called out
to take care of deviant art, where a palette of blood and earth is used
or an occasional
blooming of a thousand flowers is announced with great fanfare.

It is true that the trustees and, perforce, the
directors of many big
museums
probably agree with the declaration of one of their
director-colleagues: '... we are
pursuing aesthetic and educational objectives that are self-sufficient
and without
ulterior motive. On those grounds the trustees have established
policies that exclude
active engagement toward social and political ends.'(3)

Such policies pretend to be based on the
sociologically and
philosophically
untenable premise of a self-sufficient education and free-floating
aesthetics while
ignoring that a museum, by its very existence, actively engages in the
promotion of
social and political ends. Thus many museums which constitute some of
the more
powerful agents in the validation and distribution of art are closed
for a whole range
of contemporary work, and, if applied consistently, also to many works
of the past.

Such a ban has the further effect of seriously
impairing the economic
viability of
the incriminated works in commercial galleries, another of the major
validating agents.
Therefore in fact, if not by design, this posture has far-reaching
consequences and
leaves a politically neutral stance far behind, if such a thing exists
at all.

The idealist notion of an art created out of and
exclusively for
'disinterested
pleasure' (Immanuel Kant), a claim contradicted by history and everyday
experience, is
upheld by formalist art theory as promulgated and normatively
established by Clement
Greenberg and his adherents. Formalist thinking, however, is not
confined to his accredited followers; it reigns wherever formal
qualities are viewed in
isolation and
their pure demonstration becomes the intended message.

This theory of cultural production and dissemination
obviously
overlooks the
economic and ideological circumstances under which the industry and
formalist theory
itself operate. Questions as to the content and the audience and
beneficiaries of art are
heresy for a true formalist. Neither contemporary thinking in the
social and political
sciences nor psychoanalytic theory support such views. The pressures
and lures of the
world do not stop respectfully at the gate to the 'temple', Giscard
d'Estaing's term for Paris' Centre Pompidou (!), or the studio door.

It is not surprising, then, that the designers of
public spaces and the
corporate men
who dominate the boards of trustees of cultural institutions in the US4
are so fond of
these nineteenth-century concepts of 'art for art's sake'. The fact
that many works done
in this vein today are abstract and enjoy avant-garde status no longer
poses a problem
and now is often seen as an asset in the hunt for cultural prestige.
The corporate state,
like governments, has a natural allergy to questions such as 'what' and
'for whom'?
Unwittingly or not, formalist theory provides an alibi. lt induces its
clients to believe
that they are witnessing and participating in important historic
events, as if artworks
which are purportedly done for their own sake still performed the
liberating role they
played in the nineteenth century.

Aside from this powerful ideological allegiance and
confluence of
interests, the
curators, critics, artists and dealers of the formalist persuasion,
like the producers and
promoters of any other product or system of messages, also have an
economic interest
in the maintenance and expansion of their position in the market. The
investment of
considerable funds is at stake.(5)

In spite of these constraining forces, it is
demonstrably false to
assume that their
control over the art world in liberal societies is complete. Examples
could be cited in
which certain cultural products are censored outright or discouraged
from surfacing
in one corner and accepted or even promoted in another corner of the
same liberal
environment.(6) Although in all these instances ideology or more
crudely
apparent
financial considerations also guide the decisions, the individuals and
social forces
behind them do not necessarily share the same beliefs, value systems
and interests.

The consciousness industry,(7) of which the art
industry is an
integral but minor
small shop operation for a custom-made output, is such a far-flung
global operation,
with so many potentially conflicting elements, that absolute product
control is
impossible. It is this lack of total cohesion and the occasional
divergence of interests
that secures a modicum of 'deviant' behaviour.

The relative openness to non-conforming products -
not to be equated
with so-called pluralism - is further aided by the consciousness
industry's
built-in dialectics.
For it to remain viable and profitable, it requires a pool of workers
and a clientele with
the judgement and the demand for ever new forms of entertainment, fresh
information
and sensual and intellectual stimulation. Although rarely in the
foreground, it is the
'deviant' elements that provide the necessary dynamics. Without them
the industry
would bureaucratize and stagnate in boredom, which is, in fact, what
happens in
repressive environments.

Ironically, the ideological stabilization of power in
the hands of a
given power elite
is predicated on the mobilization of the resources for its potential
overthrow. If
'repressive tolerance' were as smothering as Herbert Marcuse fears,
there would be no
need to spend enormous amounts of money for propaganda and the public
relations
efforts of big corporations (Mobil Oil Corp spent $21 million alone for
its 'Goodwill
Umbrella' in 1976). These investments attest to the race between an
ever more
sophisticated public and newly developed techniques of persuasion, in
which art is also
increasingly used as an instrument.(8)

The millions of white-collar workers of the industry,
teachers,
journalists, priests,
art professionals and all other producers and disseminators of mental
products, are
engaged in the cementing of the dominant ideological constructs as well
as in
dismantling them. In many ways this group reflects the ambiguous role
of the petite-bourgeoisie,(9) that amorphous and steadily growing
class with a middle and upper
middle income and some form of higher education, oscillating between
the owners
of the means of production and the 'proletariat'. This embarrassing and
embarrassed
class, in doubt about its identity and aspirations and riddled with
conflicts and guilt, is
the origin of the contemporary innovators and rebels as it is the
reservoir of those most
actively engaged in the preservation of the status quo.

The general art public (not to be confused with the
relatively small
number of
collectors), the public of museums and art centres, comes from the same
social pool. It
is a rather young audience, financially at ease but not rich,
college-educated and flirting
with the political left rather than with the right.(10) Thus there is a
remarkable
demographic resemblance between the art professionals, the art public
at large, and
probably the readership of this publication [Art actual]. Apparently
art is no longer the
exclusive domain of the bourgeoisie and nobility as it was in the past.

Decades of doctrinaire interpretation of only a few
aspects of the
economic base
have prevented us from adequately understanding the complexities of the
art world
and the even more complex functioning of the consciousness industry, of
which the art
world appears to be a microscopic model and a part. Nor have we learnt
to understand
the elusive character of the expanding petite-bourgeoisie in
industrialized societies,
which has become a considerable force in the consciousness industry and
among its
consumers. It seems to play a more important role in societal change
than is normally recognized.

Nothing is gained by decrying the daily manipulation
of our minds or by
retreating
into a private world supposedly untouched by it. There is no reason to
leave to the
corporate state and its public relations, mercenaries these
satisfactions of our sensuous
and mental needs or to allow, by default, the promotion of values that
are not in our
interest. Given the dialectic nature of the contemporary
petite-bourgeois consciousness
industry, its vast resources probably can be put to use against the
dominant ideology.
This, however, seems to be possible only with a matching dialectical
approach and may
very well require a cunning involvement in all the contradictions of
the medium and its
practitioners.

(1) Complete results of John
Weber Gallery Visitors'
Profile 1 and 2 are
reproduced in Hans Haacke, Framing
and Being Framed: 7
Works 1970-75, Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and
Design,
Halifax and New York, 1975. Most visitors to the John
Weber Gallery also view exhibits at the Castelli, Sonnabend and
Emmerich
Galleries, contemporary art galleries in the same
building. Personal observation of the gallery public, however, suggests
that the margin of error is not excessive so as to make
the survey useless. For the purpose of this essay, collectors are not
considered art professionals.

(2) The operating budget of non-profit arts groups in
New York State for
the 1976-77 fiscal year alone is given as $410 million in a
survey by the New York State Council on the Arts.

(3) Thomas Messer, director ofthe Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, in a
letter to the author 19 March 1971, explaining the
rejection of works dealing with New York real estate for exhibition in
a
scheduled one-man show at the museum. The
exhibition was eventually cancelled and Edward F. Fry, the curator,
dismissed.

(5) The Andre Emmerich Gallery, a major outpost for
formalist art in New
York, resumed advertising in Artforum
after a two-year
pause as soon as the anti-formalist editor/publisher, John Coplans, and
his executive editor, Max Kozloff, were dismissed or
forced to resign by the magazine's owner, Charles Cowles (son of Vice
Chairman of Board of Trustees at The Museum of Modern
Art), in December 1976.
Other prominent New York Galleries had also withheld advertising when
Artforum editors did not abide by the tacit
understanding that their galleries' artists receive ample attention and
the art world's infra-structure remain a taboo subject.

(6) One example from the author's own experience: in
1974 the Cologne
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum banned Manet-PROJEKT
'74, a
large work, for obvious economic and political reasons. Two years later
it was prominently displayed at the Kunstverein in
Frankfurt. Both institutions are funded by their respective cities and
both city councils, at the time, were dominated by the
Social Democratic Party. Before the Frankfurt exhibition, the piece had
been shown in a commercial gallery in Cologne (Paul
Maenz), at the ICA, London, and the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. It
also had been reproduced in its entirety or extensively
covered in German, Belgian, Italian and US art magazines, and it had
been purchased by a Belgian collector.

(7) Title of an essay by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, in
Einzelheiten I,
Bewusstseinsindustrie, Frankfurt, 1962.

(8) 'Exxon's support of the arts serves the arts as a
social lubricant.
And if business is to continue in big cities, it needs a more
lubricated environment.' Quote from Robert Kingsley, Manager of Urban
Affairs, Dept. of Public Affairs, Exxon Corp., New York.

(9) The contemporary petite-bourgeoisie is the
subject of many relevant
essays in Kursbuch 45,
Berlin, September 1976.